During his career, Deputy Police Chief David Roddy has traveled across the country teaching officers how to respond to SWAT and active shooter situations.

He tells the officers he trains to be prepared for anything and think about everything.

“Your response, the training those officers should have gone through, how they would be coming into it, how they would position themselves, all very greatly depend upon what that incident looks like,” said Deputy Chief Roddy.

He says one of the special circumstances Wednesday morning is that the shooting happened outside which made it more difficult and dangerous for those officers who responded.

“That just increases the threat level that those officers are coming into. It also speaks to the bravery of those officers coming into a situation that fluid and that large and that ever changing,” said Deputy Chief Roddy.

He says he has a friend who works for the federal government in the Washington D.C. area and they’ve been communicating today about the shooting. He wants to find out more about what they’ve learned from the response and how it can be applied to better training and preparation in Chattanooga.

He adds that he hopes law enforcement officials in Virginia have the kind of community support that police and emergency personnel had in Chattanooga following the July 16, 2015 shooting that left four United States Marines dead and one Navy Sailor dead.